


pick a star in the sky

by ratherunnecessary



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Post-Crooked Kingdom, inej/happiness (yes), working through trauma in a healthy way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8229824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherunnecessary/pseuds/ratherunnecessary
Summary: The Wraith is back.
  The news spread throughout Ketterdam, flooding the streets like a late spring rain. One day, berth twenty-three was empty, as it had been for almost seven months, and then the next day, the neat ship was docked, sails furled against the oncoming winter storms. Post-Crooked Kingdom. Inej and Kaz see each other again after a long time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing; this is a fan work. Title is from ["Coffee" by Miguel.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z55sZ2oVY4)

_The Wraith is back_.

The news spread throughout Ketterdam, flooding the streets like a late spring rain. One day, berth twenty-three was empty, as it had been for almost seven months, and then the next day, the neat ship was docked, sails furled against the oncoming winter storms.

Everyone, from the canal rats in the alleys of the Barrel to the merchers trading _kruge_ in the Exchange, heard. Rumours had flown during the ship’s absence, sparked early in the summer when _the Green Barker_ , a notorious slaver ship, had limped into port with a skeleton crew and a tale of being boarded by what they thought was a rival pirate ship - only to have Inej Ghafa, former Dregs spider, appear on their deck. As the tale went, she had personally slit the throat of the captain after he refused to surrender. She and her motley crew, each deceptively deadly for how ragged they looked, had unlocked the slaves’ chains and taken them, leaving the _Barker_ with only enough sailors to make it to Ketterdam.

The stories rolled in slowly that summer. Inej Ghafa had turned pirate, obsessed with jewels and gold. No, Inej Ghafa was selecting men for the biggest heist the world had ever seen. Inej Ghafa was a ghost sailing on a ship made of human bones. The rumours slowly coalesced into something akin to the truth: Inej Ghafa was fast becoming the closest thing to the law on the open seas. And she was ruthless.

Thus, when _the Wraith_ appeared in the Fifth Harbor, everyone knew in a matter of hours. But Kaz Brekker knew first.

It was very late at night or very early in the morning. Kaz had stopped distinguishing between the two. It was the only time he had to write out the day’s figures. Though he did them in his head, sloppy bookkeeping had sunk too many gangs. The devil was in the details, and he, Kaz thought with a grin, certainly counted as a devil.

Someone tapped on the door. “Enter,” he said, eyes on the tidy row of sums.

“Kaz...” He looked up immediately. Annika stood half in the door; the look on her face had him quickly rising, reaching for his hat and cane.

“What?”

“ _The Wraith_ is back.”

He paused, gloved hand on his hat.

 _Finally_.

Annika continued. “Spotted pulling into berth twenty-three an hour ago. Runner just came.”

He set his cane down, straightened his gloves, and sat at his desk. “Thank you.” He picked up his pen. “Shut the door behind you.”

 

///

 

 _She’s back_.

He went about his day as usual, visited the Crow Club, checked the details of the upcoming Gilden job with Pim, scoped out the new pleasure house in the Barrel that was the center of some very unsavoury rumours, and the whole time the knowledge hummed in the back of his head. And now, as he walked back to the Slat, he let it come to the front.

She had come back. He had asked her to, and she had come back. Wraith gossip was popular at the Slat - each Crow had their own story about Inej, even the ones who had never spoken with her - and they had tried to pry tales from Kaz many times. A cold look and cutting remark had put an end to it, but if he left his office door cracked on occasion, who would dare suspect it was because Kaz Brekker, the boy they called Dirtyhands, soaked up every bit of Wraith gossip he could?

The Ketterdam air tasted different. Was it because he knew she was breathing it too?

He stomped through the Slat’s front door and shouldered through the crowd to stick his head in the kitchen. “Dinner in my room,” he barked to Rincham, the long-suffering cook. “For two.” He ignored the flash of surprise on the man’s red face, and thumped his way up the stairs.

Three brutal flights later and he was finally alone. His old desk still stood in the middle of the room, covered with papers and notebooks, a chair on either side. He leaned his cane against one and limped to his bedroom.

The sparseness of his attic had never bothered him before. In fact, he found it comforting. “Fewer places to hide,” he’d said to Jesper once. “For you or someone else?” Jesper had retorted. Now it simply looked... empty. His time in the bedroom was for the few hours of sleep he snatched, and the office for when he needed to think without being bothered.

“What would I do, hang a painting?” he muttered to himself. What kind of painting would he even hang? There were no portraits of rich ancestors and he couldn’t imagine a DeKappel still life adorning the wall above his bed. _Perhaps a seascape?_ He pushed the thought away and turned to the wash basin.

The ritual of removing his coat and gloves, washing his face, his hands, stripping off his shirt in favor of a clean one, smoothing his hair back, did more to calm his nerves than all the Barrel’s bad whiskey ever could. But all the same, he fetched the bottle he kept in his armoire and poured himself two fingers.

Outside, the sun was sinking below the horizon, glittering on the dingy windowpanes. He wandered back into the old office and set the glass on the makeshift desk, sifting through the papers. Some were copies of old ledgers, some were notes and letters from informers, a few copies of the newspaper. And there, at the very bottom, were the six _Wanted_ posters of himself, Jesper, Wylan, Inej, Matthias, and Kuwei. He let his fingers linger on each in turn. They’d had one letter from Nina, sent to Wylan, telling them she’d reached Fjerda and seen Matthias’ body put to rest. “The real work begins now,“ she’d written. It had for all of them. It was one thing to jump from one crazy scheme to the next. It was another to put a life together that wasn’t based on revenge - and riches. Though, if Kaz was being honest with himself, the riches were certainly still close to the top of his list.

A knock on the door heralded the arrival of his dinner. He swept the papers to one side to allow the boy to place the tray. A covered dish of stew and half loaf of bread sat next to the neatly stacked cutlery and bowls. Two of everything.

He found himself staring at the two mismatched bowls, one nested in the other. God, he was going soft. He needed more whiskey.

He fetched the bottle from his bedroom, and when he came back, there was someone perched on the windowsill.

Her face was angled away from him, but the lithe lines of her body were unmistakable and unchanged. The arm stretched out to offer corn to one of the crows was a deeper brown. There was a ring on her pinky finger. Her hair was shorter and loose, though it still brushed the middle of her back. He set the bottle of whiskey on the desk.

She turned, and their eyes met.

It was like the world righted itself. He had been tipped off his axis this whole time, and now, just with her glance, Inej had set him right.

“Rincham made stew,” he said, sitting.

Inej swung through the window, landing lightly. “There’s no substitute for Dregs cooking,” she said. There was a new surety to her walk; Kaz realized she wasn’t trying to move unnoticed anymore.

She sat. He dished out the stew. Neither of them spoke. She fetched herself a glass from his room and poured some whiskey. She raised it.

“What are we toasting?” he asked, raising his.

“I don’t know,” she said, and grinned hugely. “Pick something.” He laughed and the spell broke. She was back, she was here, and everything was well. They touched their glasses and drank.

"What business?" he said by habit as they dug into the food.

“The _Lady’s Delight_ and the _Rage_ are forming a partnership,” she said without preamble. “They’re being bankrolled by someone on the Council.”

“The _Rage_...?” Kaz couldn’t place the ship.

“Nerik Gelten’s ship.”

“He’s not Kerch.”

Inej shook her head. “Ravkan.”

Kaz leaned back. “So is the new member of the Merchant Council. His family’s been in Ketterdam for a generation or so but they’re Ravkan by origin.”

Kaz had missed this. He and Inej rattling around the Slat, discussing information, hatching plots, teasing out the details. No one had replaced her when she left. No one could. It was as much like old times as he could hope for.

Except, he realized with one large difference. Before, it had been him ordering Inej to gather information and her doing so. Now she brought it to the table of her own volition.

She was describing one of their encounters with slavers at sea. Inej, captain of her own ship. Inej, leading her own crew into battle.

How he wished he could see it.

“You’re not listening,” Inej said, eyebrow raised. “Scheming?”

“No, for once. I’m trying to imagine it: Inej Ghafa, pirate queen.”

She snorted, an inelegant sound that he immediately pegged as inherited from Specht. “It’s even less glamorous than life in the Dregs. Dirtier, too.”

“Now that, I’d like to see. I would’ve thought it impossible.”

She laughed a little at that and stood, swirling the remnants of whiskey in her glass. She went to the window, where several crows still perched in the twilight. Kaz watched as she shredded the remaining heel of bread for them. They ate it right out of her hand, pecking daintily at the crumbs.

“Do you think they remember me?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” he said. “How could they forget? You’re the only one who notices them, let alone feeds them.”

“Mm.”

There it was again, that spell that made everything feel too weighted. Each action was significant, from the way she tilted her head in the lamplight to the way Kaz rested his hand on the table, bare fingers loosely splayed. Would it ever feel easy? He could only hope. _Hope_. An unfamiliar word, but one he had to cling to.

But until then, he would stand, and he did. He would walk over to her, and he did. He would take in the way she looked at him, eyes wide, lips parting to breath, “Kaz...” He would lay his fingertips on her cheekbone, feel the flush of heat there. He would give her the chance to pull away, and feel his heart leap to his throat when she didn’t. He would lean in to kiss her for the first time.

For a few moments, he was only aware of her: the sweet taste of her mouth, the whisper of her hair sweeping against his arm, the soft sound she made in the back of her throat. His whole body ached with it. It was everything he’d never allowed himself to dream

But, as it always did, the wave of sensations came for him. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

He pulled away, drawing in a ragged breath, already looking for an escape. Inej moved with him, laying her hands on his shoulders.

“Kaz,” she whispered, “Kaz.”

He exhaled, letting her voice and touch ground him. He closed his eyes and focused on the weight of her hands. She breathed with him. In. Out.

Slowly, she leaned her forehead against his. Kaz rested his hands on her waist, feeling the muscles flex with each inhalation. Their air intermingled and they simply stood, breathing.

Eventually, she kissed him gently on the cheek and moved back. She wound her hair, dark as a crow’s wing in the moonlight, around her head expertly and pinned it.

“Til tomorrow,” she said, and swung up on the windowsill and out onto the roof.

He watched her bound from rooftop to rooftop until he couldn’t pick her out among the shadows. The glass was cool against his forehead.

 _Tomorrow_. She’d said it like a promise.

It was one he intended to keep.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr as [justanxietythings](http://justanxietythings.tumblr.com).


End file.
